Summary: Canonical’s founder is making controversial moves which are helping Microsoft’s PR, such as the nonsense constantly heard from full-time PR staff and moles like Rebellino

UBUNTU used to be a nice project when it was portrayed as “all community” (with branding done accordingly) and some humanitarian cause, as implied by the literal name, “Ubuntu”. I loved Ubuntu when I became an early adopter. I had been told by a colleague (another Ph.D. student called Patrick) that Ubuntu was Debian-based and funded by a man who had visited space. Another colleague of mine, the man who created the first GNU/Linux distribution (MCC) helped me find a copy of Ubuntu 4.10, the first release. Back then it was just an easy-to-install Debian with GNOME loaded by default. It was long before Ubuntu became a branding venture of Mark and his ego trip (not the trip he made to space). I don’t approach this post from a position of hate, only sheer disappointment and a sense of being back-stabbed (betrayal) after sacrificing a lot of my personal life to Ubuntu. I am not alone. Follow reporters privately say the exact same thing.

“The other day Mark crossed out one of his recruitment tools — the promise he would try to make GNU/Linux ubiquitous on the desktop.”The other day Mark crossed out one of his recruitment tools — the promise he would try to make GNU/Linux ubiquitous on the desktop. Many followed his lead, contingent on this philosophical view or implicit promise. But he let us all down. Do not trust opportunist billionaires saying they’re out to get other billionaires. You would be fodder in their Turf Wars. I should have known this even a decade ago.

At the moment, Mr. Shuttleworth seems to be part of that "dick-sucking" contest/competition which Torvalds alluded to. He had been saying a lot of positive things about Microsoft recently, so he turned from pretending to be “against Microsoft” to “working with Microsoft”. What a sellout, what a weak compass of principles. Jono Bacon and his flattery to Microsoft as of late (Microsoft is now a partner) has also been noteworthy. This is like Linspire all over again.

Canonical wants us to think Microsoft monopoly is over, but it is not. Cisco is now complaining about Microsoft monopoly in yet another area. To quote: “The Cisco Systems (CSCO) Jabber vs. Microsoft (MSFT) Skype video conferencing war has pushed beyond product features and functions, and now includes a new word: Monopoly.”

Ubuntu.com was promoting Skype in its front page even after Microsoft had bought it. Skype is insidious spyware after Microsoft changed the infrastructure and put it in the land of the NSA. Here is more on the monopoly allegation; “Last year, Cisco took its case against the Microsoft-Cisco merger to court in Europe. While it didn’t oppose the merger, the networking giant wanted EU regulators to impose rules about “standards-based interoperability.” In a blog post, Cisco VP Marthin De Beer said the very future of video communications was at risk.”

“Canonical wants us to think Microsoft monopoly is over, but it is not.”Never mind other monopolies, eh? The Italian press prints some Microsoft lies from Rebellino, a sort of Microsoft mole whose purpose seems to be seeding puff pieces like this one, printing Microsoft’s lies to portray its actions as ‘open’. Canonical does the same thing now. iophk called it “Microsoft appeasement” and cited this discussion about it. There are many comments there, almost exclusively hostile towards Canonical. Adrian Lopez wrote: “Microsoft is losing market share to tablets and smartphones, but these are shut tighter than the PC platform ever was. I’m not sure that’s something to celebrate.”

With leadership from Microsoft inside Ubuntu, this should not be totally shocking. It is almost like Ubuntu got abducted. The Microsoft booster says Shuttlewoth gave up and in Ubuntu Forums an interesting comment says: “This seems like kind of a missed opportunity. I would have liked to see this bug closed with some fanfare, maybe in conjunction with the announcement of a big OEM deal or somesuch. As it is, it sounds like Mark just sort of said, “oh, yeah, that bug. I guess we can close that now or something.” If anything, the closing and his comments about it reflect less on Ubuntu’s success and more on Canonical’s waning interest in the PC platform.”

The Shuttleworth position can be summarised as follows:

• 2004: come join me, we’ll beat an illegal monopoly together.
• 2013: I’m friends with Microsoft now, never mind that monopoly.

The news got covered even by NPR and some big channels, not just technology sites that offer no criticism. A few years back, Shuttleworth was comparing Microsoft criticism to racism (false and derogatory analogy, akin to him calling his critics "trolls"), showing he was starting to treat Microsoft disdain as the problems An article on this subject by John C. Dvorak, who told me he was exploring Ubuntu, is actually expressing unease at IDG. Dvorak says: “Ubuntu’s maker says Linux will never achieve the goal of overtaking Windows. This because computers—and users—are dumber than ever.”

“If you were tasked with destroying Ubuntu as quickly as possible, you would do more or less what Mark Shuttleworth is doing right now.”This is sarcasm. iophk says “Dvorak is always a bit flamebaitish, but he brings up good points from time to time. In this case his points hit home. However, he forgets about the OEM lock-in.. no-one has gotten past that yet. It could happen but restricted boot makes it harder even at the OEM level.”

If you were tasked with destroying Ubuntu as quickly as possible, you would do more or less what Mark Shuttleworth is doing right now. Pro-Linux sites covered this and Linux expert Sean Michael Kerner chose the headline “Shuttleworth Fixes Ubuntu Linux Bug #1 – But It’s Not Really Fixed Is It?”

As put by Kevin Granade in his reply to me, “setting aside portable devices (irrelevant) and MS being nice now (bullshit), Ubuntu bug #1 isn’t “fixed”, it’s “wontfix”.”

On the closing of bug #1, one person sent me this photo by E-mail. “Microsoft still has a lock on the desktop and via restricted boot is trying to complete it and make it permanent,” he said.

“Is Microsoft extorting Android? Yes, and even Mark cannot deny this.”Recently, Shuttleworth has been aiding criminals rather than fighting them. “The closure comment reads like something agreed to as part of a deal with Microsoft,” iophk told me, thinking whether it is “deal or entryism?”

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, a leading GNU/Linux pundit, says “Shuttleworth, a top business Linux leader, praised Microsoft for its support of Linux.”

Carmony #2.

“Of course, I disagree,” Pogson writes. “No thanks, Mark. I will continue the fight as long as I can whether it is convenient to continue or not. Wintel survives on ignorance.”

Here is some more coverage of interest:

1. Angst and Anxiety Over Ubuntu’s Chosen Path

   Of course, “people and distributions do evolve,” Google+ blogger Gonzalo Velasco C. pointed out. “Definitively, Ubuntu is no more than just a ‘friendly Debian.’ But in their quest to become a successful ‘Linux for human beings,’ they (specially guided by Mark Shuttleworth) took a very particular path.”

   Specifically, “they have made some concessions, they have sort of imposed some changes to become ‘a huge (commercial) success,’ and we can see where they got,” he added. “Many users (especially the more GNU/Linux FLOSS, community oriented) have left, and many new users seeking something that works and is easy to use have come. C’est la vie.”

2. Ubuntu’s number 1 bug is fixed: Microsoft is no longer the enemy

   It’s really worth reminding ourselves of how, in many ways, open source won. True, it’s still hard to walk into a store and buy a PC that doesn’t have Windows preinstalled – one of the key complaints in that original bug report – but, in a way, that doesn’t matter anymore. Microsoft may still dominate the PC market, but what we traditionally think of as a PC is no longer the default personal computer. Heck, these days we even have a market-leading and (largely) open-source browser, in the shape of Chrome, that has become a significant operating system of sorts in its own right.

That’s hogwash.

Let’s recall, putting aside whether GNU/Linux ‘won’ or not, how Shuttleworth used to speak about Microsoft. Two quotes from half a decade ago:

1. “That’s extortion and we should call it what it is. To say, as Ballmer did, that there is undisclosed balance sheet liability, that’s just extortion and we should refuse to get drawn into that game.” –Mark Shuttleworth
2. “Microsoft is asking people to pay them for patents, but they won’t say which ones. If a guy walks into a shop and says: “It’s an unsafe neighbourhood, why don’t you pay me 20 bucks and I’ll make sure you’re okay,” that’s illegal. It’s racketeering.” –Mark Shuttleworth

Has any of this extortion stopped? No.

Is Microsoft extorting Android? Yes, and even Mark cannot deny this.

So, Mr. Shuttleworth, why have you befriended the Mafia? You are rapidly becoming an advocacy tool for that Mafia. You became what you hated and those who point it out are anything but “trolls” (a term he recurrently uses to describe critics). █

Summary: The companies that want to be like Windows die together, along with the lawsuit surrounding their merger/acquisition (as well as the sale of Scalix!)

IT HAS BEEN almost years since we regularly mentioned the second and third GNU/Linux vendors that agreed to pay Microsoft for patents. One bought the other, but this was followed by a long and ugly dispute between employees/managers of Linspire. Ever since then the court proceedings received little attention and the companies got mentioned as an historical reference in articles such as this one which mentions Linspire. Xandros vanished after Presto, although it got mentioned a lot in relation to ASUS returning to Linux, e.g. here and dozens of other publications in many languages. For the curious, we still have our Linspire/Xandros pages, which go all the way back to the time Kevin Carmony sold out to Ballmer, right after he had insulted GNU/Linux and used the “piracy” word. Anyway, the good news is that Carmony lost the legal case (plus legal expenses) in his attempt to defeat his former boss. According to a new report:

San Diego entrepreneur Michael Robertson claims he has scored a win in a lawsuit against the former CEO and CFO of Linspire. According to legal documents released by Robertson, former CEO Kevin Carmony and former CFO Chad Olson are liable for fraud, conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty, and other counts in a spat over disagreements after Linspire was sold to Xandros.

And in other news, Scalix gets out of Xandros just years after Xandros bought it. Not a good sign for Xandros, eh?

Sebring Software Inc. (symbol: SMXI) acquired the Scalix Email and Calendaring Platform from Xandros Inc., a New York-based firm, for $12 million.

To complete the acquisition, Sebring will pay Xandros $5.75 million in cash over six months, plus 6.25 million shares of Sebring’s common stock, being valued at $1 per share, a release says.

There is more information about it in [1, 2]. █

Summary: Techrights’ fight against ‘Linux tax’ from Microsoft is getting a lot more attention this Friday

“BOYCOTT NOVELL” was all about stopping Microsoft tax on GNU/Linux. More people are beginning to wake us and realise that our cause was all along on target, as several distributions of GNU/Linux which paid Microsoft for this ‘privilege’ simply went extinct (Xandros' price was $50 for Microsoft patents). Our goal was to ensure that people/companies do not become dependent on Microsoft-taxed distributions, as that would simply serve Microsoft’s goal of making GNU/Linux its own cash cow. SUSE, Turbolinux, and Linspire were also part of this problem and all those companies went into the ashtray of history. There are more such companies, but they sell hardware, not purely software.

Everyone appears to have just ‘discovered’ that “HTC Pays Microsoft $5 Per Android Phone” and there is already a lot of coverage about it. Quoting The Register:

Buy an HTC smartphone and $5 of what you spent on it goes to Microsoft – even if you’ve just bought an Android device.

So says Citi analyst Walter Pritchard in a note sent out to investors today, according to Business Insider.

Microsoft announced the royalty payment deal – the result of a legal settlement – last year, but the amount the software giant receives was not made public. MS has alleged Android infringes its intellectual property, and has other smartphone vendors in its sights.

Pritchard reckons Microsoft is pursuing other Android handset makers for a royalty of $7.50-12.50 per device. HTC clearly got of relatively lightly by settling Microsoft’s claims out of court.

[...]

Microsoft can’t be too forceful. If can’t afford to overly annoy those vendors who’re also selling phones based on its Windows Phone OS – they might just drop it, in a huff. Or they may trade lower royalties for a stronger commitment to WinPho – something Microsoft needs far more than even a few hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments.

Saumsung, LG, and Kyocera Mita also pay Microsoft for Android. There might be more such companies, perhaps not prominent ones though. Faced with a price tag, people act surprised about it even though our site has highlighted this issue since 2007 when Samsung signed the first such deal and in order to discourage similar deals we called for a boycott. The bottom line is, we do have a problem here, but it is not a new problem. We even found one anti-Linux propagandist writing: “This is just fraud. I really like HTC phones with their Sense interface but I have a Galaxy S II on order and I will not buy any HTC phone again while they give in to Microsoft’s blackmail.”

According to other news from today, Lodsys wants to go after Android developers. “Patent holding company Lodsys caused a stir recently when it demanded money from iOS developers using in-app payments,” says this report, “something it holds a patent for. Now it appears that Android developers could be next in line for a stern email from the firm.

“Android Community has spotted one developer who is claiming to have received a request for payment in relation to integrating in-app payments into an Android app. If true, it could stir up another hornet’s nest of anger in the development community.”

“Saumsung, LG, and Kyocera Mita also pay Microsoft for Android.”This is actually not news and we alluded to it before. Apple, unlike Google, is a patent aggressor, so it is not the same situation for Android and Apple’s hypeOS. Interestingly enough, Microsoft’s ally Nokia is also giving a hard time to Apple. How long before Microsoft uses Nokia to sue Android distributors too? Nokia has given hints about it. Microsoft’s strategy is to tax Linux from as many directions as possible. It’s blackmail [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], so regulators should step in to intervene. █

“That’s extortion and we should call it what it is. To say, as Ballmer did, that there is undisclosed balance sheet liability, that’s just extortion and we should refuse to get drawn into that game.”

–Mark Shuttleworth

Summary: Linspire case ends up with very high legal expenses and this leads to a discussion which can be generalised to account for patent litigation

SWEEPING statements are risky as they contribute towards alienation and sometimes elimination of friends (or potential friends) and controversial topics are rarely brought up as they too are divisive. But for readers of this site who are patent lawyers and have stayed with us thus far, the twist above (around Christopher Hitchens’s book) will probably not be a shocker.

Techrights has claimed on nearly thousands of occasions and in about 100 posts that inertia for the broken (overburdened) patent system comes from patent lawyers, who benefit directly from increased bureaucracy and “lawyer time” (pay is usually clocked). The more messy the system, the more such lawyers (patent lawyers in particular) will be required and the more money they will extract from people who actually create things of value to society.

The reason we bring this up again is that there’s news from Linspire and it’s another episode in the drama of litigation [1, 2, 3], where Michael Robertson (head of Linspire/Lindows) is forced to pay $300,000+ to a former employee. Now, watch where most of this money is going:

For those of you following the case of Michael Robertson’s insane attacks on former Linspire employees, you will be interested in the latest development from the court today…

One of the former Linspire employees that Robertson attacked was the Controller. This employee (along with several others) was vindicated of all counts in September. Because the Controller had a contract dispute with Robertson, attorney fees are usually awarded, but of course Robertson fought paying. Today, the court awarded the Controller and his lawyer $215,000 in legal fees and $22,958 in prejudgement interest. The Judge also affirmed the jury’s damages judgement of $72,500, to be paid by Robertson (Linspire) to the Controller. This means that Robertson will have to pay over $300,000 to just this one employee for his failed attempts in attacking him in the courts. You can read the ruling here. (This is the tentative ruling which was affirmed in court today by Judge Taylor.)

We thought it was a good example of how this sick legal system operates. It’s a system which puts financial burden on those involved, including companies that are accused of patent litigation. In this case, Linspire helps make lawyers richer and thus stronger (e.g. in lobbying). In such cases, the lawyers have nothing to lose, only their clients do. Someone should pass this message/memo to the likes of Judge Rader, who still fails to acknowledge that this is a major problem when it comes to patents too. Let’s work on improving science and expanding the scope of knowledge rather than suing each other. Many disputes can be resolved outside the courts and elimination of weaponry like patents would help increase productivity. Just watch what the Cold War did to the Soviets (and to a lesser degree to the United States). They could produce a lot of warheads (enriching the Military Industrial Complex, analogous to houndish — trigger-happy lawyers), but could not take good care of their own population. █

“In the 20th century, the pace of technological developments increasingly became tied into a complex set of interactions between Congress, the industrial manufacturers, university research, and the military establishment. This set of relations, known more popularly as the “military-industrial complex,” emerged because the military’s unique technological demands, concentration of funding, large scale application, and highly centralized control played a dominant role in driving technological innovation. Fundamental advances in medicine, physics, chemistry, computing, aviation, material science, naval architecture, and meteorology, among other fields, can be traced back to basic and applied research for military applications.” –Wikipedia

Summary: “Microsoft tax” in tablets is recalled now that Linspire meets MeeGo and Vista 7 allegedly meets the HP “Slate” again

SOME DAYS AGO we wrote about Linspire disputes following the sale of the company’s assets, including invisible ‘assets’ like the “Linspire” trademark.

Well, trademarks are a touchy subject in the Free software world and “Linspire” was never truly used as a trademark by Xandros which bought it. It has been MIA for 2 years.

Xandros is hardly mentioned anymore (with few exceptions like this one) and Linspire is rarely but still mentioned as a supported platform.

Earlier today we learned about this “Linspire on MeeGo” tablet thing, which is baffling as no other source seems to be covering it and it’s not clear what Linspire has to do with it.

The Linspire-MeeGo tablet will likely support touch-based input methods and gestures. Linpus will be creating touchscreen-specific apps to run on MeeGo, such as an eReader, maps, mail, a browser, and a media player. Linpus will also include a contact manager.

We were pretty sure Linspire (Ballnux) was in its grave by now; given that it was a Microsoft-taxed distribution, no love was lost. Is this “Linspire-MeeGo tablet” taxed by Microsoft for imaginary patent violations? What would Nokia say now that its CEO is a former Microsoft president (also see [1, 2, 3])?

Speaking of tablets, in our previous posts about the HP-Hurd scandal [1, 2, 3, 4] we explained that Microsoft entryism at HP seemed to have had the effect of making the company neglect Linux and bring back Vista 7 to the “Slate”, even after HP had officially abandoned it. According to this new video (“Supposed HP Slate prototype video”), Microsoft cronies at HP may have had their way.

It’s a Windows 7 version of the same old Microsoft Tablet PC form factor, but this time, with a finger instead of a stylus. They used to call these “slate”-type Tablet PCs. They were slaughtered in the market by the “convertible” type that had the flip-around laptop keyboards, because most Windows software simply works much better with a keyboard and trackpad.

This was brought to our attention by lnxwalt, who dented: “HP “Slate” video: http://cl.ly/2W0J via @mikegrace@twitter.com — should have killed it; #WebOS tablets should be *much* better. [...] Holy cow! That thing is awful! Is it Flash that makes it so slow?”

Well, Vista 7 is not suitable for portable devices. That’s why Linux/Android does so well on these form factors whose sales grow. █

Summary: The many things that SCO and Linspire have in common; the verdict is in regarding the Kevin Carmony vs. Michael Robertson case

TWO years ago Linspire’s founder sold the company’s assets to Xandros and it has been over a year since we last heard about the legal fight this led to (within Linspire). Basically, Kevin Carmony and others alleged that Michael Robertson did not say where the money went and they have been fighting quite viciously for quite a long while. Well, a verdict is finally in, a long time after it had all begun:

Carmony, who sold out to Steve Ballmer 3 years ago, tells the story in his blog:

Once again, Michael Robertson’s bullying has been put to an end by the greatest legal system in the world. Yesterday, a jury vindicated four former Linspire employees who were being wrongly abused and attacked by Michael Robertson. He knew these employees had done nothing wrong, but used them as innocent pawns in his attacks.

Another company which is selling virtually all of its assets is SCO [1, 2, 3] and we have found two more articles about it [1, 2]. SCO and Linspire have several things in common

1. Both companies were once in the GNU/Linux business, still obsessed with proprietary software
2. Both companies received money from Microsoft to FUD Linux
3. Both companies are/were selling all their assets
4. All that remains in both companies is a legal battle

The world needs neither SCO nor Linspire. █

Summary: SCO’s sale of the software business is approved, bringing back memories of Linspire

SOME TIME earlier this month we wrote about SCO looking to raise more money after a seemingly-fake bankruptcy. An author who is typically a SCO sympathiser has just caught up with the news about the court approving SCO’s sale of its software business.

The SCO Group’s software business is up for sale, but that might not mean an end to its controversial lawsuits against IBM Corp. and Novell Inc.

Judge Kevin Gross in Delaware has approved procedures for selling off the Lindon company’s Unix business before the end of this year.

Such sales of assets are not so rare. In last week’s news, for example, we also learned about Novell’s familiarity with the practice. From Jon Oltsik about HP:

They company backed this up when it sold its identity management portfolio to Novell.

Two years ago Xandros bought Linspire’s assets (and threw away the trademarks, which it never truly used). Linspire failed for reasons which are explained in this month’s article from a former Xandros user and the sale of Linspire to Xandros is also mentioned in this new press release about Michael Robertson and others.

Here is where Xandros is said to be today:

Xandros – If you prefer a Linux distribution with a Microsoft connection, Xandros is the one for you. Rumors aside, Xandros and Microsoft collaborate in what’s known in technical circles as “cooperatition.” This means that they compete cooperatively. To find out more about this unique perspective, check out the Xandros About page.

It does not seem like anyone really uses or buys it anymore. It’s out of date. The same goes for Presto, which very rarely gets a mention anywhere. Xandros — like KNOPPIX — has not much of a story to tell anymore. The main Debian derivative which gets all the attention is Ubuntu, as pointed out now that Debian turns 17.

Many popular Linux distros are based on Debian and still heavily rely on ‘upstream’ development including the very popular Ubuntu, but also KNOPPIX, MEPIS, Xandros and many others. In turn, these distros have each been used as the basis for many other Linux flavors.

It would be interesting to know what Ian Murdock, Debian’s founder, is up to now that OpenSolaris/”Project Indiana” received a blow from Oracle. Murdock has been exceptionally quiet for years (especially since he joined Sun Microsystems). █

Summary: Only days left for Xandros to decide that it wants to keep the Freespire domain alive; CNR Warehouse down for over 3 months

IT HAS been a long time since we last wrote about Xandros, which absorbed Linspire (both companies had signed a patent deal with Microsoft).

Xandros has already killed Linspire (the distribution), as it announced shortly after it bought the company. It said it would stay committed to Freespire, but it never made a release, not even of Xandros, for which it offers Microsoft patent 'protection' at the cost of $50. According to this thread, Xandros has only days left to renew the Freespire domain name. Will it do it? One former user is convinced that Xandros will make it “officially dead” (we too let our “Boycott Xandros” and “Boycott Linspire” domains expire last month):

According to this thread on the Freespire forum, the Freespire website and domain will expire on August 22, 2010, which at this time is a mere two weeks away. If Xandros doesn’t renew the website and domain and allows the Freespire website to go offline, then Freespire will be officially dead. Xandros cares more about kissing Microsoft’s ass and making insignificant OEM deals and killing off everything associated with Linspire, especially Freespire and CNR. The CNR Warehouse has been down for at least THREE MONTHS. Xandros, do you realize the money you could make from selling “Click N Buy” software on CNR?

That’s just what happens to almost every company which signs a submissive Microsoft deal. █

Summary: IBM and Novell grow a little closer; Verizon and SpagoBI make use of SUSE as well; other Ballnux distributions have little to say

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

MOST of the SUSE news this week relates to IBM and/or Studio, starting with this article about IBM’s Power7.

The Power7-based blade servers can also run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, which was just tweaked two weeks ago to support the Power7 chips as well as all the new x64 processors from Intel and AMD. Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3 will support the new Power7 blades, but you’re going to have to wait until SP1 to get SLES 11 for these machines.

Novell is left behind RHEL in this case. When it comes to appliances, Novell beats this drum a lot. There is a new LinkedIn group, SUSE Studio blog [1, 2], and this announcement about SpagoBI.

An open-source business intelligence appliance powered by Suse Linux has been released by database maker Ingres and Italian infrastructure software provider Engineering Ingegneria Informatica.

The SpagoBI appliance, announced on Thursday, is based on the open-source business intelligence (BI) suite SpagoBI, along with the Ingres database and Novell’s Suse Linux 11.

Verizon’s new relationship with SUSE is one that was mentioned last week. Here is the press release about it and also some news coverage [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

This brings us to IBM, whose new arrangement with Novell (see corresponding press release) led to Sutor’s chat that can be viewed below.

There is another new IBM chat with Novell, but the lady there concentrates on System z.

Here is the news coverage from Server Watch:

IBM is turning to technology from Novell to build Linux OS powered software appliances — a move that aims to deliver easy-to-deploy software for physical, virtual and cloud-based environments in use at small to midsized businesses.

The new software appliances deliver solutions for IBM Lotus, Websphere and Cognos software applications. Specifically, IBM will be offering software appliances for the IBM Lotus Foundations collaboration suite as well as the Lotus Protector for Mail Security. IBM’s WebSphere Application Server is also benefiting with a software appliance aimed at virtualized environments, while Big Blue is ramping up its analytics offerings with appliances for its Cognos Now! and IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer packages.

The new solutions leverage technology from Novell’s SUSE Appliance Program, which enables software vendors to build and deploy software appliances using a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) operating system base.

This is also covered in some other news sites [1, 2, 3].

According to the company, the initiative, which leverages the SUSE Appliance Program from Novell, enables IBM to deliver ‘plug and play’ appliances that lower the cost and complexity of deploying applications for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and help independent software vendors (ISVs) expand their routes to market.

The press in Pakistan covered a talk from Novell in a fashion that promotes SUSE.

Apurva Shah, Alliance Manager for Novell in India and Pakistan was the keynote presentation at the event where he talked about how Novell and SUSE Linux solutions power enterprises with efficient and intelligent systems.

Novell Support Advisor 2 is released to help support SUSE, but is it enough to beat RHEL?

Xandros

Xandros is mentioned in relation to MeeGo [1, 2] and few other articles. But Xandros is generally nowhere to be seen; Linspire too is treated just as part of history.

Samsung and LG

These two Korean giants which pay Microsoft for Linux both make Android handsets. There are new examples from both Samsung [1, 2] and from LG [1, 2], showing that they continue to make Ballnux phones.

This is the last “News Summary” of this type; we will continue to cover news of this nature, but the format will change. █

Summary: A survey of the past two week’s news shows where SLES is gaining and where it is losing

NOVELL’S SLES is occasionally being listed as a supported platform on a variety of servers, but there are barriers to it. Red Hat is still way ahead of SLES when it comes to deployment:

Today’s data centers are moving toward only two important non-mainframe server operating systems — Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows — dominating the commercial operating system market. Proprietary Unix is on the downswing, with many Unix systems (AIX, HP-UX and Solaris), and the SCO operating systems being migrated to Linux or Windows. NetWare has been on a very steep decline for several years and Novell recently ended general support for Netware. IBM’s z/OS and z/VM are still holding their own as mainframe operating systems.

[...]

The questions are: Why is Novell, the second-largest commercial Linux server operating system vendor, being discounted as a serious Linux operating system vendor over the next few years?And what does this mean to you, the IT director?

Nat Friedman was promoting SLED (see these two videos which have just been uploaded [1, 2]), but he left Novell some months ago and Novell keeps talking about Vista 7 rather than SLED.

There are some new videos about SUSE Moblin and SLED, but Novell is not doing enough.

On the server side, Timothy Prickett Morgan mentions SLES as supported here, here, here, and here (along with RHEL).

IBM’s i 7.1 and AIX 5.3 and 6.1, and Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 5.5, and Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3 are supported on the blades. SLES 11 will be supported later this quarter when SP1 for that OS comes out.

Another one from Timothy Prickett Morgan shows the relation to IBM:

Big Blue juices OS formerly known as 400

[...]

This can be done quickly, and a partition can be trashed when the testing is over. i 7.1 logical partitions can create guest partitions based on i 7.1 or i 6.1. Guest partitions can also be spun up for AIX 5.2, 5.3, and 6.1 as well as the Linux distros from Red Hat and Novell.

Novell’s tag-team act with IBM (intended to sell its proprietary products) will lead to even more promotion of SaaS rather than Free software on one’s own desktop. Novell’s special relationship with IBM mainframes can also be seen here. SaaS at Verizon will involve SLES but not RHEL, which is not entirely odd but Verizon used to work a lot with Red Hat. Did half a billion dollars from Microsoft change Verizon’s mind?

Verizon also expanded the applications and operating systems supported by SaaS, adding SUSE Linux, which is commonly used in ERP packages; and Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) SQL Server 2008, which has been added as a click-to-provision server option. The addition of SUSE Linux and SQL Server 2008 augments the support for Windows, Red Hat, Apache and SQL Server 2005 that CaaS already supports.

More about Verizon here:

Enhancements to the CaaS offering include support for server cloning and the SUSE Linux operating system.

Here is the corresponding press release:

The SUSE Linux operating system is now supported on the Verizon CaaS platform as a standard service offering. Linux software is used with commonly deployed enterprise resource planning packages. In addition, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has been added as a “click-to-provision” database server option.

Here is Microsoft piggybacking SUSE into HPC yet again. How does IBM feel about it? The Microsoft boosters sure seem happy about the whole thing.

The Linux and Windows interoperability efforts from Microsoft and partners such as Novell have evolved to the HPC market.

Ingres got closer to SLES recently. It’s because of Studio appliances, which the company covered in three new videos [1, 2, 3] and also mentioned in a press release.

The SpagoBI Analytical Appliance integrates SpagoBI, the only entirely open source suite covering all the analytical areas of business intelligence projects, Ingres Database, the leading open source database that helps organizations develop and manage business critical applications at an affordable cost, and SUSE® Linux Enterprise 11 from Novell®.

SGI still supports both RHEL and SLES, based on its new press release which says:

At the system software level, Cyclone offers a flexible computing environment with choice of Novell(R) SUSE(R) or Red Hat(R) Linux(R) operating systems, further performance-optimized through the addition of SGI(R) ProPack(TM).

Novell is the last distributor of GNU/Linux which poses a real problem because it pays Microsoft for each copy of SLES. Xandros is mostly unheard of at this stage and the only mention of it that we have found this month (in English) was to do with Linspire, which it had acquired only to bury. Michael Robertson still deals with litigation:

Robertson, the controversy-courting founder of MP3.com and Linspire, is preparing to roll out a new online music service called BYO.fm. He said that BYO taps into Web radio’s potential to enable users to act as their own program directors.

Michael Robertson’s lawsuit against Carmony (and vice versa) seems to have ended rather quietly. Maybe it’s better that way. █

Summary: News and coverage concerning the distributions which joined Microsoft’s patent racket against GNU/Linux

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

GroundWork continues to favour SLES for some reason and there is a new press release about it.

GroundWork Open Source, Inc. (GWOS http://www.gwos.com), the leader in commercial open source systems and network management software, today announced it will conclude the GWOS barCAMP Deux sessions with an exclusive release of a SUSE powered Virtual Appliance package that integrates GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 6.1 with Zendesk (www.zendesk.com).

At the high end, IBM deploys SLES for some large companies with mission-critical systems.

Implementing an IBM System z10 Enterprise Linux Server helps EFiS EDI Finance Service AG save money and the environment

Here is some guidance for anyone who wants SLED 11 installed on this HP hardware:

However, we still tested the stock version and came away impressed. For the vast majority of computing tasks – using Evolution to check your POP mail, burning a DVD disc using LightScribe (included with this SLED build) and even playing games or watching movies – the Elite 7000 is up to the task. Where we noticed a performance degradation is when we compared Linux-to-Linux between this system and a home-built PC that uses an SSD drive, an Nvidia Quadro CX graphics card and has 6GB of RAM. There was no comparison, of course – the home-built system was snappier even for popping up Firefox, copying files and running simulations with a program like Autodesk Revit Architecture (which normally prefers a workstation PC).

That’s about it when it comes to SLE*.

Xandros/Linspire

Another distribution that we name “Ballnux” would have to be Xandros because Linspire and Turbolinux are more or less history. Here is a little new rant about Xandros:

Linpus and Xandros aren’t looking quite so exciting. Of course, that could change as smartbooks with ARM-based processors start to hit the market, since they’re not capable of running Windows.

Not looking like Windows does not make something deficient. People don’t need Windows, they just need something that works. But anyway, Lindows, which was bought by Xandros in its “Linspire” form, is now being called one of the “worst products ever”.

9. Lindows
The hype was palpable surrounding Lindows: it was going to be a Linux operating system that provided full compatibility with Windows. Microsoft didn’t take kindly to this and even sued, unsuccessfully, saying that Lindows was infringing its Windows copyright. The court case just added to the excitement.

Xandros never did anything substantial with Linspire, not even with CNR.

Samsung

Microsoft is also extorting Linux phones and Samsung lets Microsoft get its way. Here is a new discussion about Samsung’s Android phones and about Bada:

Many people think of it as a poor thought, but Samsung has made it clear that Samsung Bada is being launched to make smartphones accessible to everyone. The smartphone market is still in its growing phase and Bada platform aims at improving the current situation.

Bada is mostly a layer and the platform that’s underneath benefits Microsoft if people buy their phones from Samsung. █

Summary: A little interlude about where the site is going and why it needs help from readers

There is some discussion in the IRC channel about what may happen to Novell next. We are still producing almost 1 megabyte of IRC discussion per day (usually about 600 kilobytes on average), which makes up about 95% of feedback from readers (Boycott Novell is approaching an audience of 10,000 unique visitors per day, but commenting requires an account).

We thought it would be reasonable to say something about the future now that Novell is at a mortal crossroad because of a vulture fund that had a coup planned for 3-4 months [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. We append some more references at the bottom.

“If Novell was bought and dismantled, this Web site’s name would remain for all all sorts of practical/technical reasons and considerations.”Four GNU/Linux vendors (as opposed to users of it, mostly those who embed it in hardware) signed a Linux patent deal with Microsoft in 2006-2007. The GPLv3 may have stopped this flood of feeble vendors which ended up joining the racket. Linspire got picked up by Xandros, which appears to have almost quit the GNU/Linux market, Turbolinux sort of collapsed onto another firm in Asia, and Novell is now the last one standing. This is major as it means that almost all the companies we boycotted are dying, as opposed to those who kept it ‘clean’ (notably Mandriva, Canonical, and Red Hat). This just comes to show what happens to those who foolishly take Microsoft’s side.

The main issues are still the digital hydras known as Apple and Microsoft, both of which are now legally attacking GNU/Linux with software patents (Apple versus HTC [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], Microsoft versus TomTom, SCO versus IBM, et cetera).

If Novell was bought and dismantled, this Web site’s name would remain for all all sorts of practical/technical reasons and considerations.

We will try to focus on delivering news summaries on a daily basis (these are the most popular items here) and also address threats to Free software. With a Ph.D. completed, I hope to write Boycott Novell full time (sacrificing an academic career to advance the freedom of software), but it would not be possible without help from readers. We estimate that there are many thousands of regular readers who have enjoyed this site for over 3 years (almost 10,000 blog posts were published here), so if each reader was willing to donate a few bucks/quid, that would enable us to carry on going. At the same time, we realise that such moves rarely work as they do not bring in funds, so we are left reluctant to ask for financial assistance (even though it’s needed). Any advice would be appreciated. █
____
[1] How Much Will Novell Go For? [The 451 Group reckons Novell's sale is inevitable]

As bargains go, Novell’s (NOVL) valuation in the recently floated bid from a hedge fund is a bit like a ‘crazy Eddie’ discount. Earlier this week, Elliott Associates offered $5.75 for each of the roughly 350,000 shares for Novell. Altogether, the equity value totals about $2bn.

[2] Will Novell Finally Be Acquired? [from the 'Microsoft press']

[3] Novell Gets $2 Billion Takeover Offer From Elliott

Whether they’re interested in breaking Novell into pieces or simply after Novell’s patent portfolio or intellectual property remains to be seen at this point. Either way I don’t see the acquisition being good for Novell or Open Source though. Which brings the next question. Is another suitor likely to jump in at this point. the Var Guy lists IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Computer Associates as potential options. I’d add Cisco as another potential Dark Horse candidate, but agree that IBM and HP are exceedingly unlikely. The realty is that Novell is going to be difficult to digest from a strategic standpoint. They have at least four divergent businesses and Linux only makes up about 20% of the company’s revenue. That means a private-equity firm taking the company private and restructuring may be the most viable option at this point.

[4] BBC America: Palast Hunts the Vultures [hedge funds are so unethical that some consider banning them]

Some vultures have feathers, but some have fancy offices and huge homes. Tonight, BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast follows the trail of one “vulture fund” chief, from a locked office door in New York to mud-brick houses in Africa.

How strange. When I arrive at the offices of Eric Hermann at hedge fund FH International, just outside New York City, the company’s corporate sign is unbolted from the wall and the suite number removed from the door.

But wait … I hear noises inside the office. Huh? I knock on the locked door and out steps the office building’s security manager.

Summary: News about the different types of “Ballnux” distributions (ones from which Microsoft extracts profit through intimidation and collusion)

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

THERE HAS BEEN NO major news about SLE* in the month of February, but the product in being used or deployed in some areas. Novell’s marketing people write about the SUSE appliance of ROC EasySpooler. Here is the press release (also here):

ROC Software Systems Inc. announces the first release of the ROC EasySpooler SUSE-powered appliance. Based on the reliable ROC EasySpooler core technology and a fully supported version of SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell, the appliance provides the highest level of print output management available to any business environment.

Here is something related that was mentioned two or three weeks ago when the press release came out.

More analysis from The VAR Guy:

Meanwhile, Novell apparently has some momentum going around SUSE Studio and the SUSE Appliance Toolkit.

Novell’s growing focus on software appliances has earned generally upbeat feedback from bloggers and software developers alike. The approach, in theory, allows ISVs to rapidly write SUSE Linux applications that have specific purposes in mind — such as database management, systems management or collaboration.

Since its July 2009 release, SUSE Studio has built more than 250,000 appliances and has nearly 55,000 registered users worldwide, according to Novell statements from January 2010.

Our resident blogger is impressed.

A Linux Planet writer has reviewed SUSE Studio, giving some numbers too:

To date, Novell has had strong usage of its online SUSE Studio Linux appliance development service, with over 250,000 software appliances built. Even with that success, Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL) sees a need to expand the effort with a new SUSE Appliance Toolkit providing an on-premises version of SUSE Studio, as well as a new Lifecycle Management Server to manage appliance updates.

It points to this older article. Promoters of Vista 7 (for money) have also used their publication to promote SUSE Studio:

Can’t code? Don’t worry! You can create a top-quality custom Linux distro from the comfort of your web browser using SUSE Studio.

Novell uploaded this video which bears the description: “At the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2010, Novell announced SUSE Moblin, the first fully-supported Moblin preload for netbooks. SUSE Moblin provides a fully-enabled desktop operating system optimized for Internet, social media, and Web-centric collaboration usage with netbooks and nettops.”

Another more important announcement that involves Novell actually comes from LPI, whose joint press release says:

Novell Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) and The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) today announced an international partnership to standardize their entry-level Linux certification programs on LPIC-1. Under this program, Linux professionals who have earned their LPIC-1 status will also satisfy the requirements for the Novell® Certified Linux Administrator (CLA) certification. In addition, Novell Training Services has formally agreed to include required LPIC-1 learning objectives in its CLA course training material.

The text can also be found here and it is worth adding that some months ago we saw that Jim Lacey (LPI head) would be joined by another executive in LPI — one who had granted many Microsoft and Novell certifications beforehand. There could be a relation to this, even though it’s not necessarily the case. In any event, we have found some blog posts on the subject, but there is hardly any news coverage (unless ComputerWorld (IDG) UK counts ).

Novell earlier today partnered up with the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). Under terms of the partnership:

* Linux professionals who have earned their LPIC-1 status will also satisfy the requirements for the Novell Certified Linux Administrator (CLA) certification.
* Novell Training Services has formally agreed to include required LPIC-1 learning objectives in its CLA course training material.
* Together, Novell and LPI want to develop the “Linux workforce of the future,” according to Jim Lacey, president and CEO of LPI.

Novell’s marketing people wrote about this using a headline that only distantly alludes to the news:

Linux Skills Are Attractive to Employers

[...]

This week, Novell and The Linux Professional Institue (LPI), announced an international partnership to standardize their entry-level Linux certification programs on LPIC-1. Under the terms of the agreement, all qualified LPIC-1 holders will have the opportunity to apply for Novell Certified Linux Administrator certification without additional exams or fees.

SGI has some new product which turns out to have SLES support. This is not surprising.

At the system software level, Cyclone offers a flexible computing environment with the choice of Novell(R) SUSE(R) or Red Hat(R) Linux(R) operating systems, further performance-optimized through the addition of SGI(R) ProPack(TM). Altair PBS Professional(R) and SGI(R) ISLE(TM) Cluster Manager provide system scheduling and management.

SLES support is also offered by Double-Take based on this new press release:

In addition to full-server replication, Double-Take Availability for Linux Version 4.6 also expands support for Novell® SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) beyond version 10 to include support for versions 9 and 11.

Microsoft's Walli (well, a former Microsoft employee who is now influencing FOSS projects in a way that’s hostile towards Freedom) wrote about Red Hat’s value versus Novell’s, but the situation is only being used as an example:

Let me borrow an example from discussions and a blog post from three years ago. Saving even 50% per year on a Red Hat support contract by switching to Novell is irrelevant. The risk of instability isn’t balanced against a commensurate savings in the overall budget (against say the IBM or Oracle annual spend), or new value-add to the company. It’s not worth the conversation.

Infobright goes with support for the older SLES 10, which seems like an odd choice. SLES 11 has been out for quite a while, but many administrators still (understandably) run version 10.

Infobright Enterprise Edition 3.3.1 also answers the demand for broader platform support with the addition of Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 and Microsoft 32-bit Windows Server to the broad range of popular operating systems already supported by IEE.

More Novell SUSE in the wild:

The heart of the laboratory is a 160-gigabyte database of environmental and agricultural project records running on six HP servers and two Novell servers storing the data and running the modeling software.

A relationship is forming with VMware, which is run by several former Microsoft executives [1, 2, 3, 4].

Novell and VMware are making it easier for independent software vendors (ISVs) to optimize their applications for SUSE Linux Enterprise and VMware ESX. Novell is the first operating system vendor to offer Unified Certification for ISVs with VMware.

Hardware

Intel has some new processor that Novell is said to have “praised”:

Microsoft Relevant Products/Services, Red Hat, Novell and others praised Intel’s new processor.

Processor.com seeks many comments from Novell staff and this time it does so for an article about “Migrating From Unix/RISC To x86 Servers”

For example, low-impact systems are often migrated first and the RISC hardware is redeployed to handle expansion of another RISC-based business application, which allows its life to be fully utilized.” Kerry Kim, data center product manager at Novell (www.novell.com), says another migration trigger is an overall data center upgrade and consolidation project, which often entails refreshing and standardizing the server infrastructure.

OES

Some days ago we wrote about the NHS being too dependent on Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. We now find that the NHS is among the few who renew and extend a contract with Novell:

The agreement is worth around £6 million and will run for up to five years. The NHS will use Novell’s Open Enterprise Server 2 system, as well as the Storage and Access Manager software, as the security “backbone” for 300,000 users accessing the applications.

[...]

Mark Ferrar, strategy director at the NHS, said that using an open source-based system “not only reduces costs, but will also underpin two key strategic initiatives for the NHS – reducing our environmental impact and moving towards a cloud computing environment”.

More information from Ziff Davis [1, 2, 3]:

Specifically, Novell is providing the NHS with its Open Enterprise Server 2 and Storage and Access Manager. This will act as the operating system backbone to support over 300,000 users, said Novell. Meanwhile it is also including ZENworks Configuration Management for remote management, so that IT personel can issue updates and fixes remotely.

ZENworks too is being added to the mix:

NHS Bromley has taken remote control of more than 800 PCs in its GP practices, using an IT solution from Novell.

Novell’s marketing people brag about some rating of ZENworks.

Linspire

Google is giving cash for bugs. Mozilla’s Bug Bounty evokes memories of Linspire’s role in funding it: [also here]

Mozilla announced its Bug Bounty Program in 2004, funded by Linux distribution, Linspire and Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the Ubuntu Project, a linux distribution. Under Mozilla’s program, reporters of valid critical security bugs receive a $US500 cash reward and a Mozilla T-shirt.

Michael Robertson’s role in Linspire is mentioned right here, but the article is not about Linspire, which is just a fossilised part of history one year after the patent deal with Microsoft.

Samsung, LG, and Kyocera Mita

Samsung, the Korean giant which also signed a patent deal with Microsoft (involving Linux), is bringing to market some Ballnux phones:

Vodafone 360 features a specially designed user interface using Vodafone’s ‘proximity algorithm’ (it brings the most frequently contacted to the front of the list), which was built and designed on the LiMo Foundation’s Linux platform. The native functionality of 360 will focus on content aggregation – bringing together all contacts and content in one place and allowing customers access to different networking sites including Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk. Users can also create different contact groups across social networks, so as to share different information with different groups of people.

There is more here, here, here, and here:

Samsung has announced its first Android phone for the Korean market, the Android 2.1-ready SHW-M100S phone, says SamsungHub,. In other Android news, several sites have tipped an HTC-made “Incredible” phone, and Acer reports hot sales of its “Liquid” smartphone.

LG and Samsung are very similar when it comes to their phone strategy and Linux strategy (paying Microsoft for Linux). A couple of articles mention these Korean giants in tandem:

MOBILE PHONE MAKERS LG and Samsung have previewed two new models geared for social networking just a a week ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, according to Engadget here and here.

Here is more from LG and from Kyocera Mita, which pays Microsoft for Linux as well. These products are better off avoided. █

Summary: iSoft buys TurboSystems and Novell is in a state of disarray

THE company known as TurboSystems lost its way after it had signed a patent deal with Microsoft. It sold out. According to the news (most of the coverage is in Asian languages), “iSoft Infrastructure Software Co Ltd, a Chinese software company, yesterday announced that it has bought a 51% stake in Japan’s TurboSystems, which belongs to Turbolinux and specially engaged in researching and developing the Linux technology, sources reported.” The headline says that “China’s iSoft buys Japan’s TurboSystems”, so it’s likely to be a complete acquisition (or a majority stake). There’s heaps of coverage in Chinese and it can hopefully draw an accurate picture.

Turbolinux seems like it’s over. Our last update on its terminal state showed that it was just one of those companies that lost GNU/Linux focus after Microsoft deals. What happens to Turbolinux right now is similar the story of Linspire-Xandros. Linspire got absorbed only to be put in its deathbed. This is okay because both Xandros and Linspire sold out to Microsoft, deciding to promote OOXML and to pay Microsoft for imaginary patents. The fewer of these companies that are left, the better. It’s down from 4 to just two now, Xandros and Novell.

“The problem of distributions that sell out to Microsoft is made more densely contained as their activities are ebbing.”Xandros said that it was more or less quiting its “Linux” direction and Novell too seems more focused on Microsoft technology (this one is from yesterday, posted by a Microsoft MVP who is a Novell vice president), just like Corel after the Microsoft deal [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

The problem of distributions that sell out to Microsoft is made more densely contained as their activities are ebbing. Novell is arguably the only sellout left now; it makes it a lot easier for us to track the problem with distributions whose use is harmful for GNU/Linux and Free software. Back in 2007 the problem had spread to four separate distributions, 3 of which merely followed the “Novell model”. That’s what makes Novell so unique, except for its size.

As for Novell itself, its SUSE efforts are shattered by the abandonment of Zonker (the latest among several managers like Levy, Jaffe and Friedman, who leave Novell as well). SUSE is crumbling and Michael Löffler looks for a new Community Manager:

In the meantime, I will be working with Andreas Jaeger and other Novell colleagues in marketing and engineering to cover openSUSE community relations activities.

The comments there are interesting too. Back in 2006 SUSE was probably the leading GNU/Linux distribution for the desktop (exceeding even Ubuntu). The deal with Microsoft turned Novell from hero to zero overnight. █

Summary: News catchup with vendors that pay Microsoft for the use of Linux

SUSE (SLES/SLED) hardly appears in the news these days. The exception is stories where RHEL and SLE* are aligned as “officially supported” distributions. Such is the case with SGI news that got covered in:

i. SGI unveils new supercomputer Altix UV

According to SGI, based on open standards, the system’s x86 architecture leverages quad, six or eight-core Intel Xeon processors, codenamed Nehalem-EX. It allows for the use of completely unmodified Novell SUSE or Red Hat Linux operating systems. It is suitable for open source, custom and commercial applications, ranging from technical computing applications like Ansys Fluent to enterprise applications like Oracle.

ii. SGI previews UltraViolet Nehalem EX blade clusters

The Altix UV systems will support Novell SUSE Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and will run out of the box without any modifications to the Linux code.

iii. SGI Intros Supercomputer With Intel Nehalem EX

The Altix UV’s x86 architecture enables it to run unmodified Novell SUSE or Red Hat Linux operating systems. SGI says the supercomputer is designed for running open source, custom, and commercial applications, ranging from technical applications like ANSYS FLUENT to enterprise applications like Oracle or SAP.

Novell wrote about its relationship with SAP and then there is SEP:

SEP Releases ‘SEP sesam Bare System Recovery for Novell Linux’

[...]

With the release of “SEP sesam Bare System Recovery for SLES Linux” SEP AG further enhances its backup and recovery software portfolio to provide a fast and secure methodology to recover from a major hardware failure.

Novell also wrote about the SUSE Appliance Program, which is related to SUSE Studio.

Today we are introducing the first in a series of podcasts featuring the SUSE Appliance Program and our ISV partners.

Cornelius Schumacher wrote about the versatile SUSE Studio and founder of “Nothing Is Impossible Studio” is supporting SUSE now, along with other GNU/Linux distributions.

Hollar, formerly a systems engineer with BrigTech Consulting of Reston, Virginia, and founder Nothing Is Impossible Studio, a multi-player online game publisher, works with Linux, including Red Hat, Novell and Debian systems.

Open Enterprise Server 2 has its second service pack (it is based on SUSE) while Netware and OES are mentioned for support in this new article about HP.

The software supports HP servers and storage running Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and Novell Open Enterprise Server for Netware and Linux.

Linspire

Linspire is part of Xandros now and its founder is still in hot legal water. Linspire/Lindows gets mentioned here, but in general, Linspire is more of a history now. It’s like Napster.

Samsung

Samsung is one of the companies that sold out to Microsoft and helped it apply a “patent tax” to Linux. Samsung is bringing some Linux phones to Europe (where software patents are void), sometimes via carriers like Vodafone, which is run by a former Microsoft executive [1, 2]. We wrote about this before.

Samsung announced an Android-powered “Galaxy Spica I5700″ smartphone, targeting Europe. In other Android news, Dell confirmed Brazilian and Chinese carriers for its Dell Mini 3, Google released a second-generation developers phone, and ZiiLabs is prepping an Android platform, say reports.

Luckily, Samsung’s phones lag behind the Linux competition which is not submissive to Microsoft.

Like the H1, the M1 has an innovative user interface that puts your contacts front and centre, and uses the Linux-based LiMo operating system. It’s a cool idea, but when we reviewed the Samsung H1 we found the whole thing a bit confusing.

To quote The Mirror:

Gadget review: Vodafone 360 H1 by Samsung

[...]

A nice effort, but there’s little to recommend this above HTC’s Hero or an iPhone.

There is also this:

The Vodafone 360 is currently accessible through desktop computer and on the Vodafone 360 H1 and M1 Linux Mobile phones by Samsung.

It is rather surprising to learn that Samsung may be placing its cards on Enlightenment.

Back in June Enlightenment E16 reached version 1.0.0 and then a few weeks later there was an E17 development snapshot released, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of news out of the Enlightenment camp over the past year.

The H (Heise) wrote about it the following:

Samsung may be sponsoring the Enlightenment window manager project and Enlightenment may be a component in Samsung’s bada mobile operating system. The Enlightenment project, which has been around since 1997, announced today that it was working with a “top-tier electronics maker” which “produces millions of mobile phones, televisions, sound systems and more”.

Our reader MinceR has asked, “any info on Bada besides the press release? And that it’s perhaps based on Enlightenment…”

It could be sarcastically argued that “Bada is Ballnux” because Samsung has a Linux patent deal with Ballmer. We continue to remind people not to touch Samsung products. They need to be persuaded to distance themselves from Microsoft and cancel their patent deal that harms GNU/Linux.

Sadly, Samsung receives preferential treatment in its own country, Korea.

LiMo Foundation announced that Korean wireless provider SK Telecom will deploy a Samsung-made “SCH-M510 “phone that complies with the LiMo (Linux Mobile) specification and offers a 3.5-inch AMOLED display. Meanwhile, LG Electronics, Samsung, SK Telecom, and the Korean government have launched the Korea LiMo Ecosystem Association to promote LiMo app development, says the Foundation.

We previously explained what Samsung does to LiMo [1, 2], emphasising the fact that even in Korea, Samsung helps spread Microsoft’s patent abuse against Linux. The least one can do is avoid Samsung and tell others to do the same. █

Summary: News about OpenSUSE, SLE*, and a little update from Linspire

OpenSUSE

TWO weeks ago we saw the formation of the OpenSUSE Boosting Team. They sure have a good sense of humour:

[...]

Busily,

The Propaganda Minister

Looking at coming events, Zonker will attend the Linux Fest in Ontario, Canada. OpenSUSE will also have presence at Encuentro Linux 2009.

Yes, I am going to Encuentro Linux 2009, and so does openSUSE!.

OpenSUSE 11.2 is almost ready to roll now and it will come with the excellent KDE 4.3.2 as the default desktop environment.

The 4.3.2 release of KDE came too late to be included in openSUSE 11.2. As the distribution release gets closer, there is a certain point after which only reviewed changes should be allowed in, in order to reduce the possibility of these changes causing unexpected breakages that might go unnoticed within the relatively short time until the release. This can happen and it wouldn’t be very good to fix something small and break something bigger for the release because of some unnoticed mistake. So openSUSE 11.2 will not officially include KDE 4.3.2.

To say more about the looming launch:

There is a lot of buzz in the tech media world about the upcoming Ubuntu Karmic Koala release, but it’s not the only Linux release on its way from a major vendor. Novell’s (NASDAQ: NOVL) community-driven openSUSE project is nearing completion of its next major release, version 11.2

The first release candidate for openSUSE 11.2 was released this week and includes the latest Linux 2.6.31.3 kernel, social networking support and the inclusion of the GNOME 2.28 desktop, among other new features. While both the latest GNOME and KDE desktops are part of the openSUSE 11.2 release, the KDE desktop will now become the default choice for desktop GUI instead of GNOME. The move to make KDE the default choice is not seen by openSUSE as a shift, but rather a choice for users.

On the technical side, Andreas Jaeger weighed in on packaging contributions and Pascal wrote about OpenSUSE Build Service.

We are currently switching from OBS (openSUSE Build Service) version 1.6.0 to the latest SVN trunk HEAD, which requires some experimentation and also caused a complete rebuild (for unknown reasons).

Here is an analysis of how free (as in Freedom) OpenSUSE Build Service really is.

Aaron Seigo, one of my favourite blogger, recently wrote a text titled freedom services where he highlighted aspects of freedom of online services. Aaron found four bullet points which need to be fulfilled to form a free service. I was thinking about how good the openSUSE Buildservice is in this regard. The Buildservice might not be a ‘classical’ online service yet, but who knows how things develop and where and how the OBS gets integrated. There are plenty of ideas around in that direction.

Scott Morris from SUSE Rants writes about “When 1-Click Install Bites the Dust.”

In OpenSUSE Linux, we have a wonderful thing called One-Click Install. This is a marvelous thing for new users. I love it to death, and care for it as I would my own child. Almost everyone knows that this is very cool except for maybe Christer, as he is not a believer (nuttin but love bro, loved your presentation @ UTOSC). That said, what happens when it stops working or gets broken?

AutoYaST is already here and when it comes to RPM, a Novell employee writes about “interoperability efforts” (more of a Microsoft-esque term, typically used when standards are neglected).

Bubli said that it might be a good idea to write an article of a very basic step by step instruction for AutoYaST and I had to agree with that. So this is more for people who don’t ask questions like “can I use the ‘ask’ feature for ‘rules’ in AutoYaST?”

Repository branching takes place ahead of the official arrival of OpenSUSE 11.2:

As you might know, Contrib is a universal repository for third-party packages. Branching of this repository to openSUSE:11.2:Contrib is going to happen on October, 30, so if you want to have your favorite application or tool included in openSUSE:11.2:Contrib, please submit your request as soon as possible.

More packages are being built for OpenSUSE and there is even a Firefox Personas entry for it.

Moving on with this technical side of things, except for some OpenSUSE instructions we have also found some raves, such as a recommendation from SJVN, who loves SLED.

OpenSUSE

OpenSUSE, like Fedora, is also a major distributor’s community Linux. In this case, Novell (http://www.novell.com) is the company behind the distro. Unlike Fedora, however, openSUSE tends to be less bleeding edge and more stable. It also includes software like Mono, which brings .NET programs to Linux, along with other Windows-friendly software. Free-software purists hate this and so tend to avoid Novell and openSUSE. Personally, I have little problem with that, and I like openSUSE a lot. The latest version, openSUSE 11.2, is almost ready to go. I’m not ready to review it quite yet, but I can tell you already that it’s a winner.

Also, if you’re looking for PCs for a business, Novell is the only company that offers a Linux desktop, SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) with all the enterprise support trimmings and Windows domain and AD (Active Directory) compatibility. If I were running a business today, my desktops would probably be running SLED.

OpenSUSE is also mentioned in this roundup of distributions that will soon be released, amongst other similar lists.

- openSuSE 11.2: Due just over a week after Mandriva 2010, on 12 November. Once again, Linux kernel 2.6.31, KDE 4.3 and Gnome 2.28, and a variety of other new packages. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like openSuSE has made some huge strides forward in usability, flexibility, reliability and even cosmetics over the past couple of releases, and this one looks like it will be no exception. I’ve had it loaded on various of my systems since about Milestone 3, and it has been interesting to watch how the diversity of systems on which it installs and runs easily has improved.

Here is the latest OpenSUSE Weekly News, as well as a reminder and announcement of a translation tool for it.

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

Last week we wrote about SUSE support in new Compaq/HP computers and there is still some coverage of that.

This week we have Teradata, which came out with the following press release that includes:

Teradata Express Cloud Offerings

The two new Teradata Express cloud offerings are built on Teradata Express, which is a free, non-production version of Teradata Database software intended for developers and evaluation scenarios. The cloud versions of Teradata Express support up to one terabyte of data and are powered by Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.

Here is some news coverage of the SUSE part:

Teradata will add cloud versions of Teradata Express to support up to 1TB of data and powered by Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.

SP3 of SLE* 10 is still being mentioned in some Web sites:

Novell announced the availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Service Pack 3, offering customers the latest fixes, patches and updates issued for the SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform, as well as support for the latest hardware.

As a minor last note about Linspire, the fight against Michael Robertson carries on as he loses his case [1, 2]. And in other Robertson news, the media industry wants to sue personally. Tough times for him. His Linspire identity got lost inside Xandros. █

Summary: Cliff Miller from TurboLinux is now at DeviceVM; a snapshot of what TurboLinux is currently up to

THE last vendor of desktop/server-targeted GNU/Linux to have signed a patent deal with Microsoft was TurboLinux. That was in late 2007 when Microsoft’s Linux racket [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] had already run low on steam.

We are still looking mostly at the “main four”, where hardware is not involved (so software patents only — if any — may apply): Novell, Xandros, Linspire, and TurboLinux. Linspire was folded onto Xandros, which simplifies the picture. As for TurboLinux, it is rarely mentioned anywhere these days. Some publications that speak foreign languages (usually from Asia) may still occasionally mention TurboLinux by name, whereas in the English-speaking press it is rare for TurboLinux to make it into large lists of vendors and sometimes a keyword-stuffed press release.

If one looks carefully at the news this week, it turns out that DeviceVM hired the founding CEO of TurboLinux, which means he is no longer at TurboLinux.

Miller, the founding CEO of TurboLinux, brings extensive software platform experience to the DeviceVM executive team.

San Jose, CA (Advertiser Talk) 28-Aug-2009 — DeviceVM, maker of the award-winning Splashtop® instant-on platform, today announced the appointment of Cliff Miller to the newly created position of Chief Strategy Officer. Miller will be responsible for corporate development and strategic customer and partner relationships.

Cliff Miller is widely recognized for his role in commercializing Linux in Asia. As the founder and CEO of TurboLinux, Miller created a leading platform for enterprise computing in Japan and China.

The item above is from the 28^th of August, but it seems to go back a few months, as far back as June. There are even prior observations. Here is the DeviceVM page.

“Microsoft has not signed any such patent deal in about 2 years. Leaving them behind would be very helpful indeed.”Is TurboLinux falling apart after its deal with Microsoft? Either way, this is one route to having Microsoft’s FUD squashed for good. Microsoft has not signed any such patent deal in about 2 years. Leaving them behind would be very helpful indeed.

TurboLinux is not very lively. There is hardly any news in their Web site at the moment. 5 news items span a period of 2 years and 40% of these is about the love affair with Microsoft. The flagship product at the moment — the one which appears at the front page — is about Windows. It says in the accompanying press release: “Because all users are unified under a single management scheme, business controls and compliance can be better adhered to, and because of the partnership between Turbolinux and Microsoft in jointly developing this new software with explicit patent permission, a safe and secure mixed Turbolinux and Microsoft Windows environment can be provided.”

Thank goodness for the “explicit patent permission”. It must mean that horrible things would happen without it, so only Turbolinux is the “approved” vendor. Novell has harnessed the same type of spiel. █

“Now [Novell is] little better than a branch of Microsoft”

–LinuxToday Managing Editor

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

ALMOST NOTHING was said about SLE* in the news, but there were exceptions. For instance, this report from Latin America suggests that SLE* is used there.

Chilean IT firm Linux Latin America expects sales to the retail banking segment to reach some US$5mn-7mn during fiscal year 2010, starting August 1, and aims for its new category as platinum channel for Suse Linux to drive growth, the company’s general manager Carlos Muñoz told BNamericas.

Regarding appliances, Novell has this new video (second episode in a series) and we also found this:

SUSE Studio, now in beta, allows you to build custom versions of our Linux distribution via a slick and easy web interface.

This is good for nerds who want to impress their girlfriends* with portable versions of SLES on a USB stick.

iFolder Appliances made an appearance in some places and so did OES2.

Over the past couple of months, I have been involved with migrating remote NetWare servers to Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES2) Linux. During this time, there are some lessons that have been learned that hopefully this article will be able to help you, the reader, perform your own migrations more smoothly and avoid some of the pitfalls we encountered.

Xandros

An article about fast boot was circulating in IDG Web sites. Xandros was mentioned there too because of Presto.

DeviceVM plans to release the instant search-enabled update to Splashtop to PC makers in August and to end users a month after that.

That will beat Google, which only plans to release the source code and betas of Chrome OS sometime this year.

For now, Splashtop remains atop the instant-on Linux market, whose other entrants include Phoenix Technologies Ltd.’s HyperSpace and Xandros Inc.’s Presto.

Similar coverage came from Information Week:

Much has been made of Chrome OS as a Windows killer, but most instant-on operating systems co-exist with Windows. SplashTop, Phoenix Hyperspace, and Xandros Presto all can access the Windows file system in a dual-boot mode and load Office documents. SplashTop users choose whether to boot into Windows or SplashTop. Dell Latitude ON users have a button to load ON instead of Windows.

Ziff Davis wrote about this also.

In fact, its core fast-boot technology formed the basis of HyperSpace competitor Presto, offered by Xandros.

On Xandros and sub-notebooks:

If you absolutely have to have Linux on your netbook, there are plenty of options out there already, including Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Easy Peasy, Moblin and Xandros. All of these offer a level of features and stability that is far beyond Android.

There is a new distribution for Eee PC users:

ASUS never rolled much needed updates for the EEE PCs that ran their Xandros Linux OS. No upgrades were given to the (poor) users of the EEE 700-series which were forced to use old version of Firefox (v2). Folks at XEPC.org have unveiled version 1.7 of the EEE PC OS that is compatible with EEE 700, 701, 701SD, 900, 900A, 900SD, 901, 904HD, 1000 and S101.

A more peculiar mention compared the Xandros distribution from ASUS to the implementation of its sophisticated new keyboard.

Blogeee.net says, “The version we tested was a pre-production model, and only two tabs out of five available in the interface were working. The interface reminded us of the first Eee PCs–Eee Fun and Eee Tools looked like the features found on Netbooks running Xandros. The shortcuts on the screen launch things like the alarm or the calculator, which also display on any screen connected to the system.

Linspire

It’s true that Linspire — despite being folded into Xandros — is still mentioned sometimes, mostly as an historical reference. From a few days ago:

Running applications on mobile devices is not something new but Apple controls user experience like no other companies before and ironically makes it easier, safer and more reliable than anything before. The closest thing I’ve seen to that was Click and Run (CNR), which was launched back in 2002 by Linspire (ex-Lindows) and now part of Xandros.

In summary, not much progress can be seen among distributions that participate in Microsoft’s Linux racket. █

Summary: Potentially controversial remarks from a manager at Xandros

AFTER its patent deal with Microsoft, Novell became a .NET-oriented company that sells “patent royalties” (Microsoft’s name for SUSE vouchers). But another notable company that signed such a patent deal is Xandros, which later consumed another, namely Linspire. Xandros too has a history of leaning towards .NET (at the expense of GNU/Linux) after a deal with Microsoft.

Oddly enough, Xandros is assuming that Linspire users are Windows users (Linspire is now part of Xandros) and its representatives are publicly saying that they hide Presto's identity as Linux. It’s almost as though they are shy or embarrassed by the very software they exploit without pushing much (or anything) upstream.

Timothy from The Register has just caught another priceless quote from a Xandros manager:

While Xandros is not going to turn down a sale for any of its products, and it fully supports what it sells, just like other Linux distributors. Jordan Smith, product marketing manager for OEM solutions at Xandros, is perfectly frank about what Xandros is doing. “We are kind of getting away from being a Linux company, and we are more interested in presenting a user experience,” explains Smith. “Users don’t care about Linux.”

Truth be told, Xandros long ago moved away from its focus as a “[GNU/]Linux company”. Here are some of its press releases from recent days:

i. Xandros Discusses Application Stores and Ecosystems

Xandros has announced that key staff will present a birds-of-a-feather session on using standard Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technologies to maximize maintainability on Application Stores projects at the Sun JavaOne conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, June 2, 2009. With the explosion of new mobile computing platforms, from smartphones to netbooks to e-book readers, an application store is no longer optional. It is a key contributor to the success of a platform.

ii. Xandros Creates Enhanced User Experience for Netbook Users With Moblin V2

Xandros today announced it is developing software products based on the recently released Moblin Version 2 project for Intel® Atom™ processor-based platforms. The new version of Moblin will enable Xandros to provide customizations with advanced Internet, media, social networking and graphics capabilities for the ASUS Eee PC. A turnkey Xandros software solution employing new Moblin v2 technologies will be demonstrated for the first time at the Intel booth at Computex, Taipei, Taiwan, June 2-6, 2009.

Accompanying new articles:

i. Xandros Discusses Application Stores and Ecosystems at JavaOne

Xandros today announced that key staff will present a birds-of-a-feather session on using standard Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technologies to maximize maintainability on Application Stores projects at the Sun JavaOne conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, June 2, 2009. With the explosion of new mobile computing platforms, from smartphones to netbooks to e-book readers, an application store is no longer optional. It is a key contributor to the success of a platform.

ii. Asus unveils all-band 3G netbook running Google Android

It’s easy to see why Asus would continue to seek alternatives to Windows. Google’s Android is free, which helps in the ultra price-competitive netbook segment pioneered by Asus. It’s also economical on resources, and offers one click access to Google Apps online; handy if your netbook has next to no storage space.

[...]

Keeping its bets open, Asus also demo’d a second version of the SnapDragon netbook running Xandros Linux.

Other new coverage:

i. Xandros ‘Presto: No rabbit in this hat

Xandros has announced that key staff will present a birds-of-a-feather session on using standard Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technologies to maximize maintainability on Application Stores projects at the Sun JavaOne conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, June 2, 2009. With the explosion of new mobile computing platforms, from smartphones to netbooks to e-book readers, an application store is no longer optional. It is a key contributor to the success of a platform.

ii. Budget travel tech – stay connected on the move for less

I popped an extra 16Gb in the MMC/SD slot in the side, so I have a bit of room to stash personal files without having to worry about partitions on the SSD drive. So, the hardware is good, but the included Xandros OS failed to live up to expectations, so the time had finally arrived for me to start earning my place on this esteemed writing team, and properly get my head around Linux.

Xandros is still selling GNU/Linux, so it would be an exaggeration to say that Xandros, like ASUS, is moving away from GNU/Linux. It does show, however, the negative impact of Microsoft deals. Xandros is not respected among GNU/Linux users. █

Summary: Criminal charges pressed against William Roseman; SCO hearing canceled and Chapter 7 possibly imminent

IT IS interesting to find just how small a world we live in. Using the Internet, embarrassing news about people would escape almost nobody who pays close attention.

Is it true that one of the key people at Xandros became a mayor? Is it true that he’s accused of third-degree theft? Is this the same Xandros? Yes, it is. A plurality of sources can verify this.

Carlstadt Mayor William Roseman and his former spouse, Lori Lewin, are accused of stealing medical and prescription plan benefits from the borough over the last several years, according to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.

A grand jury indicted the two on charges of third-degree conspiracy to commit theft by deception, third-degree theft by deception and second-degree official misconduct today, May 29.

[....]

Roseman is the co-founder, vice president of finance and director of Xandros, Inc., according to the most recent information available to The Leader.

This would not be the first time that William Roseman finds himself in court. Lindows (later to be known as “Linspire”) sued him and his colleagues about 5 years ago.

Buried in recently published financial documents is the news that Lindows, Inc., has been engaged in a lawsuit with rival and one-time partner Xandros, Inc. since the middle of December 2002. Lindows claims that Xandros failed to repay a $750,000 loan, and that the company and other defendants engaged in fraud and criminal misrepresentation during the negotiations leading up to Lindows’ investment in Xandros.

The information came to light when, on April 20, Lindows, Inc. filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering (IPO) of common stock.

According to court documents obtained by Newsforge, Lindows and Xandros began negotiations to enter into a strategic relationship in the second half of 2001. Two directors of the venture capital firm Linux Global Partners, Michael A. Bego and William J. Roseman, contacted Lindows executives and suggested that Lindows invest in Xandros, a newly formed entity that had been created by LGP to develop an operating system based on code from Canadian software company Corel. Lindows loaned Xandros a total of $750,000 and received three Promissory Notes in exchange, and the two companies entered into a strategic alliance on November 20, 2001.

[...]

To date, the defendants have largely ignored Lindows’ specific allegations; instead they have filed a motion that seeks to compel Lindows to enter into arbitration, while at the same time staying or dismissing the court action. However, three key defendents — Michael Bego, William Roseman, and LGP co-founder and Xandros Chairman Dr. Frederick H. Berenstein — have now been deposed (interviewed under oath without a judge being present). The parts of their testimony that do not relate to the Xandros motion may be a preview of the defense that they intend to present should the case go to trial.

In their sworn testimony, both William Roseman and Michael Bego maintain that it was their understanding that the funds provided by Lindows were pre-payments towards the revenue-sharing scheme established as part of the Strategic Alliance Agreement (SAA). The strategic alliance was designed to allow Lindows to put Xandros technology into Lindows’ own operating system; in return, Lindows would pay royalties to Xandros, possibly as high as 50% of total operating system revenue.

Is it not ironic that Xandros later bought Linspire (formerly Lindows) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]?

While on this issue of legal circumstances, despite the fact that SCO issues some press releases, its very end might be near. SCO’s bankruptcy hearing is suddenly cancelled.

Tomorrow’s bankruptcy hearing has been cancelled. This is the one that was about signing off on some fees billed to SCO, the one I told you probably was worth skipping. I gather the court agreed. Why pay lawyers to show up for a hearing on something that isn’t opposed by anyone? It’s an unnecessary expense, if the judge is just going to sign, which is what he was certainly going to do. This is a sensible move. The hearing that matters is the next one, on June 15 on whether to send SCO to Chapter 7 or not.

Groklaw takes a look at what liquidation of SCO would involve.

What happens if a company ends up in Chapter 7 bankruptcy? Here’s the overview from Cornell University School of Law’s Legal Information Institute:

Legal matters are not our area, but Groklaw has all the valuable information. █